


rise up (ting ting like glitter and gold)

by never_going_home



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gwen Has Magic, Maybe - Freeform, Uther Pendragon's A+ Parenting (Merlin), based off that one tumblr post, bc effing fight me that's why, except for a bit of arwen, gwen and leon are ace buddies, gwen has earrings, gwenfest, oh yeah and gwen's name is gwenhyfar bc i'm a nerd, this is not a shipping fic, where leon and gwen and the knights stage a coup and overthrow arthur
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:35:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28640838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_going_home/pseuds/never_going_home
Summary: Week 1 @GwenFest: Canon Era (Some People Are Just Born to Be Queen)Gwen wants to kill the king. Leon disagrees.(Or, they grow from young children to a queen-to-be and one of the most powerful men in the land, then everything goes horribly wrong.)
Relationships: Gwen & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen & Leon (Merlin), Gwen & Merlin (Merlin), Gwen & Morgana (Merlin), Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24
Collections: Gwen Fest





	rise up (ting ting like glitter and gold)

**Author's Note:**

> i can't find the goddamn post. please if someone finds it tell me.

In the beginning, it’s nothing more than a childish fancy.

“What if we killed the king and took his place?” Gwen asks Leon. She is eight and he is ten-and-two. They’re sitting side-by-side on a bough of the orchard’s largest apple tree. _Ting_ goes the light off Gwen’s earrings.

“Gwen!” Leon hisses, though there's no one within hearing range. “Do not speak in such a manner!” Gwen shrugs, belligerent, but falls quiet nonetheless. “Besides,” Leon adds. “That isn’t how succession works. The prince would become king after his father’s death, not you or I.” It’s the closest he comes to consoling her on the matter.

“But-”

 _“Gwenhyfar,”_ Leon says in a warning voice. “Forget it, alright?”

(She doesn’t.)

It is her first Beltane in Camelot. She is ten-and-one and he is ten-and-five. They’ve both had a little too much mead. Gwen can’t seem to stop giggling, and Leon is slurring his words ever-so-slightly.

“Hey, Leon,” she says, and pauses to hiccough. The sound is unbearably funny, and suddenly she can’t stop laughing for several minutes.

“Hey, Leon,” she says again, getting a grip on herself. She grabs his arm and pulls him away from the dance circle, dragging him into the shadows where they can’t be heard.

“Yes, dear Gwenhy- Gwenhyfar?” He replies, and Gwen rolls her eyes at the old Cymru rendering of her name.

“I was thinking,” she whispers in a conspiratorial manner, “how we could kill the king.” _Ting_ goes the light off Gwen’s brown eyes.

To his credit, Leon doesn’t shush her, but he sneezes, and Gwen laughs and forgets what she’s saying anyways.

Gwen is almost three-and-ten, and now she is the Lady Morgana’s new maid-cum-lady-in-waiting. Lady Morgana is sharp and sly and the same age as her, but she indulges her not-brother, the young prince, two years Gwen’s junior, and plays his games.

“Morgana, Morgana,” he says, barrelling into her as he leaps from the wardrobe where Gwen carefully concealed him. “Morgana, let’s play knights and sorcerers!”

Gwen alone sees the faintest wrinkle in Morgana's fine, powder-pale brow as she frowns, but it quickly smooths itself out. Morgana puts down her sewing. Morgana smiles a dragon’s smile. Morgana says:

“Only if I get to be the king.” The prince pouts at this, sticking his bottom lip out like Elyan does.

“But _I_ want to be the king,” he says in a whine. Suddenly, he brightens up. “I know! I’ll be king first, and you can be the evil sorcerer. Then I can be the knight and you can be the evil sorcerer. Then you can be king... I guess,” he adds grudgingly.

Dutifully, Morgana plays with him a while, until someone knocks at the door. Gwen answers it, because that’s her job.

It’s Leon, newly knighted at only ten-and-seven. It’s Leon, who’s only indication that he recognises his playmate of yore is a flicker of his eyes. It’s Leon, who is suddenly like a _ben síde,_ bringing news of death before it comes.

“Your Highness,” he says, bowing his head. “My Lady. The king requests your presence at the execution.” Morgana straightens her spine. The colour drains from the young prince’s face, but he copies his not-sister. _Ting_ goes the light off the prince’s crown.

(Gwen watches the execution too, because it’s also her job. More than that, it’s her duty. To herself, to Camelot, or to these men, she doesn’t know, and she’s not sure that she wants to find out.

Of the three men that are put to death that day, two Are criminals, and one claims to be called Emrys, a man prophesised to be the saviour of magic-kind. One, who screams as he burns that he lied.)

Gwen is ten-and-five exactly when Morgana’s nightmares start. Her mistress sits up screaming in the night, crying and shaking and staring unseeing in terror at Gwen’s face until Gwen shakes her properly awake. Eventually, Gwen persuades her to visit Gaius.

It is two years later, and Gwen is collecting Morgana’s nightly tonic from Gaius, though she knows tonight it won’t do much good. Morgana has been shaken by something, something, something she refuses to tell Gwen, her closest confidante, about.

She meets Leon and the young prince there. The young prince has grown, tall and gangly, and his voice slides between treble and tenor as fast as a weathercock spins in a storm. The prince, who has a bandage stained a reddish-brown wrapped about his forearm, and Leon, who looks wild and worried, like how he used to when Gwen or Elyan hurt themselves even slightly.

“The prince led a raid against a Druid camp today,” he tells her in a tired voice as they stand away-a-ways from where the young (not so young) prince is getting his arm stitched up. The wound is deep, but he will live. “I was not to accompany him, by order of the king. His Majesty thinks the lad should learn to command his men himself, without me to help him.”

It’s incredibly blunt, as Leon is wont to be, but it makes sense, Gwen supposes, that the prince should learn to lead without his First Knight. It makes _sense,_ of course, in the immeasurably arrogant way of kings, but part of her shouts that it is immeasurably _cruel_ to make this boy, this _child,_ attack and slaughter an entire camp of innocent people.

“And were there survivors?” she asks, but quietly, because the prince looks haggard and weary and terrified and wanting to burst into tears all at once. Leon shakes his head. _Ting_ goes the light off Gaius' needle. Gwen lets out her breath in a massive rush, angered and disgusted to her core. And then Gwen remembers something.

“What if-” she begins, and Leon looks up.

“Do not finish that sentence,” he says, because he knows her oh-so-well, and he knows exactly what was going through her mind, because Gwen knows it was going through his too. “I have heard enough talk of death and ruination today. You’d best be going now. I need to talk to the prince.”

Gwen leaves, and when Morgana babbles about her nightmare ( because Gwen was right, Gwen is always right), when Morgana sobs about more death to come, Gwen holds her close and breathes not a word.

And when Gwen sees two bottles of lavender liquid on the shelf instead of one, when she passes Leon on the way out, when she lingers in time to see him pick up the remaining bottle, she doesn’t say anything then, either.

Leon is two-tens-and-two when he’s appointed the prince’s Knight Commander, by the king himself. Privately, Leon thinks it _foolish_ that a boy barely ten-and-six should need a Knight Commander, but then, he also thought it foolish that the lad had been forced to raid the Druid camp, and that he’s been forced to watch executions since he was old enough to stand.

He finds Gwen’s face in the crowd, smiling and clapping. _Ting_ goes the light off his ornamental breastplate. He finds her outside, too, when the congregation has dispersed and the court has gone to prepare for the feast being held in his honour. Leon thinks it foolish that there should be a feast held in his honour.

“I think it foolish that there should be a feast held in my honour,” he declares, but quietly, because the corridor is not wholly devoid of other people. He begins to stride in the direction of his new chambers, and Gwen follows after him.

“Why?”

 _“Because,”_ Leon grinds out through clenched teeth. How is he to explain such a thing, even to Gwen, who’s like a younger sister to him, who’s one of (who is) his closest friend? How is he to explain n that he understands how much of an honour it is, but that he doesn’t want it to be given by Uther? How is he to explain that perhaps he feels as though he is imposing upon the young prince, giving him support in the shape of a man he perhaps does not want, and that he wants the prince to make his own decision about who forms what will, in time, become the back-bone of his council?

Gwen must see some of this written in his face, because she clucks her tongue and lays a hand upon his arm.

“He looks up to you, you know,” she says softly. “I see you two together, and it’s… it’s like I’m watching you and Elyan. He has this… look in his eyes,” Gwen’s own crinkle in a half-smile. “This absolute adoration, and respect. You are not… a burden, if that’s what you think.” Leon places a hand over Gwen’s.

“Thank you, Gwen.”

“I mean it,” she adds fiercely, and Leon blinks. “You two need to talk to each other. _Properly_ talk, because that boy is emotionally stunted if I’ve ever seen it. I think he thinks the exact same about you.” Leon blinks again.

“The prince thinks that… he burdens me?” Gwen shrugs.

 _“Talk_ to him,” she urges, and stands on tip-toe to kiss his cheek, like she used to when she was young. Leon grins, and catches her by her hand, spinning her around in a fast, tight circle until she caught in his arms in an embrace. Gwen sighs, resting her forehead against the overly-fancy engraving at the rim of his breastplate.

“‘M proud of you,” she says into his chainmail. Then, “Leon, your chin’s digging into my skull.” Leon does nothing except smile and tip his head down further. _“Leon!”_ Gwen says in an enraged voice. He draws back and pokes her in the cheek. She pulls a face, which makes her look like a disgruntled mouse, and he laughs delightedly. 

“You’re so _mean_ to me,” she says in an exaggerated huff, and, with a swish of her skirts, she’s gone.

The feast goes well, and if, after he pulls the prince into the corner to have a talk, if Gwen smiles at him in a smug, know-it-all manner, well, he just shrugs and smiles back.

The next morning, as Gwen serves breakfast to the knights, several knights chortle as she serves them, glancing back and forth between her and Leon. It’s not part of her ordinary duties, to be sure, _but_ there’s been a nasty illness circulating among the kitchen serving girls, and Gwen was the highest in rank to lead the procession of girls scraped up from the castle staff to serve the meal to Camelot’s finest knights. They eat like pigs, and Gwen’s only ever seen so much food at feasts. She sets down a plate in front of Leon, holding her pitcher in a questioning manner.

“Would the good Knight Commander like some mead?” she asks. Leon looks at her with a deadpan expression, but nods. As she pours it, she hears in what was probably meant to be an undertone:

“Yeah, well, he got it last night, didn’t ya, Lion-man?”

Gwen may not have ever been to bed with someone may not ever want to, but she’s been around enough washerwomen to know an innuendo when she hears one. She glares at the men for an instant, then walks straight past them, head held high.

“Hey, you, get here with that mead!” one of them orders. Gwen pretends not to hear them as she serves another knight, who has a kinder, more sympathetic face. When she looks across the table of Leon, he gives her an abashed grin, which she returns.

It’s the last time she smiles for a very long time.

When she arrives home, something feels… wrong. Something is off. Something is _not right._ Gwen doesn’t know how she knows, but she _knows._

“Elyan,” she says. “Is Da at the forge still?”

There’s no reply. Gwen shrugs and puts her basket of sewing on the table and begins to prepare supper. Da comes home. Elyan… doesn’t.

“Da,” she says as she scoops stew onto two plates, leaving the rest to simmer in the cookpot, “have you seen Elyan today?” Da frowns, and breaks the bread into three, murmuring the blessing over their food.

“I saw him this morning, just after you left. Said he was going to go foraging in the woods, I think.” Gwen relaxes. If that’s the case, Elyan’ll probably slip back into the house late at night, when they’re all asleep. Da goes to bed after he washes the dishes, his snores ringing out almost immediately, but Gwen takes a candle, holds the taper to its base so that when she sets it down, it’ll stick to the table. Then she pulls her sewing from her basket. She’s making Morgana a new dress with a rather ingenious support system, if she did say so herself, because the lady is not overfond of corsetry.

It’s nice to have work to do. Oft-times when she sits up in wait for her brother, she has nothing to do but stare at the wall mindlessly, waiting until the candle burns out and counting her time by that. Elyan tells her when he comes in, time and time again, that he doesn’t need her to worry about him, to which she responds she’ll _always_ worry about him, because that was what sisters did, and that his supper was hanging over the fire.

The guardsmen patrolling the city outside ring their bells to signal to the next platoon that their shift is over and that it’s time for the replacements to move out, which means, more or less, that it's the middle of the night. Gwen knows this because she’s memorised their timetable, mostly for fun. It also means that she knows when the city is most sparsely defended, and when Elyan is mostly likely to slip back past the walls.

He doesn’t come.

Gwen wakes the next morning as the sun rises. She sits for a moment on her stool, loosely curling and uncurling her hands in the soft fabric draped over her lap. Then she frowns, stretches, and goes to stoke the fire.

The pot isn’t empty, and the stew has dried up and stuck to the bottom of it. Gwen bites her lip, trying to clamp down on the rising terror within her. Elyan’s bed, in the storeroom with the bags of meal beneath it, is empty, and still unmade in the exact way it was the day before.

Her father has already left for the forge, which she knows because he has taken the bread and cheese and two apples she set out on the bench when she momentarily tired of stitching. She won’t need to report to the Head Steward until the sun is well and truly over the horizon, which means she has perhaps one and half candle-marks of time to interrogate her father and search for her missing brother. _Not missing not missing not missing-_

“Da,” she says as she nears the forge, “Da, have you seen Elyan?” It’s an exact repeat of her words last night, and she has a sinking feeling that his answer will be the same as it was then, too.

“Can’t say I have, my girl.” He frowns. “Why? Has he not come home?”

Gwen shrugs and doesn’t answer.

“Gwen?” her father calls after her as she walks away. She ignores him, feeling the terror claw its way up into her throat until it’s choking her.

“Gwenhyfar!” he snaps, and she stops, shocked. He hasn’t called her _Gwenhyfar_ since her mother died, an age and an age ago. “What will you do now?”

“Go to the cells,” she says, before the terror overruns her entirely. Elyan has ended up in the cells before, when he hadn’t escaped notice, or the gate-guards on duty hadn’t taken kindly to a young boy sneaking back into the city after the gates shut, even if he were a citizen, and had been for all but thirteen months of his life. Gwen swallows. “Talk to Leon, too.” Her father nods his head, looking suddenly weary.

“Find him, Gwnhyfar,” he says softly. “Find him.” Gwen barely pauses before she answers.

“I will. I promise.”

Elyan is not in the cells. And, perhaps worse, none of the gate-guards saw him return, although those on the shift before saw him leave. One says he had a pack over his shoulder, but Gwen does not dare let herself dwell on what it might mean.

She finds Leon on the training fields, leading a demonstration on improvised weaponry to the newer knights, the young prince among them. Leon, as one of the most senior knights, if in rank and not age, is in charge of the gruelling program stretching over four sennights, to train the fresh blood so that they might be the best warriors in the land. It covers nearly everything: how to defend oneself from magical attacks (hit the bastard before they hit you, and make it fatal), all manners of weapon-work (you stab them, my lads, with the _pointy_ end), basic field medicine alongside Gaius (if your comrade is bleeding out, then stop him), torture resistance training (this here, my lads, is a snake’s venom commonly administered by torturers in Mercia, and you’re all going to drink a little bit of it, and _this_ is a burning hot poker), how to cook a meal so you don't poison your comrades (this means no finding any kind of interesting foliage you think’ll make good seasoning based on how pretty it is, this means _you,_ Sir Irving), and a myriad of other things that might and will come in handy over their careers, not least of which is how to fight with unorthodox weapons and in unorthodox ways.

Leon asks for volunteers. Gwen watches closely at the knights. More specifically, at the prince. He waits perhaps a moment too long, but eventually raises his hand with a resigned look on his face.

“Arthur,” Leon says, apparently oblivious to all the other trainees eager to prove themselves to the Knight Commander. “Come forward.”

Reluctantly, the prince trudges up to the front, as though he were expecting this.

“Attack me,” Leon commands. The prince hesitates, unsure. Leon gives him a smile. “It’s all right, Your Highness. You’re not going to hurt me.”

The prince’s face becomes stony. Gwen knows that Leon was being completely genuine, that the way he had addressed the prince had intended to be respectful, but the prince is only ten-and-six, and people that age tend to take things the wrong way. She should know. She has Elyan, after all. Or had Elyan, had him because he’s missing and nowhere to be found-

The prince draws his sword, feinting right then cutting sharply upwards towards the exposed bit of Leon’s throat. Gwen holds her breath. She knows the swords the trainees use aren’t blunted, and she fears for Leon’s life.

Three seconds later, the prince is lying on the floor, groaning. Gwen blinks. She’d barely seen Leon move. In Leon’s hand is a banner pole, half again taller than he, the red-and-gold cloth she her very self wove still flapping. The prince gets up stiffly, every movement exuding resentfulness, but he does not strike Leon down the moment he turns back to address the rest of the group, as Gwen half-expected him to. When the knights have been split into groups of twos and threes, Gwen sidles up to Leon.

“I wish to speak to you on behalf of the Lady Morgana,” she says, loudly and clearly, because she doesn’t want any more gossip about the two of them to enter the castle’s rumour mill. “It is…” she gives a grimace that she poorly conceals on purpose, “…a _delicate_ matter. I would not wish to discuss it here.”

Once they’re suitably out of earshot, Leon looks at her, seeing right through as he always does.

“Lady Morgana doesn’t have anything to do with this, does she?”

“Elyan’s missing,” she breathes. He freezes. “Da said he left yesterday morning, and the guards on duty saw him go through the gates with his pack, and none have saw him gone back.” She glanced worriedly at the dawn-streaked sky. “I must away, or Steward will have my head for being late. But please, Leon, _please,_ search for him.” Leon nods, face grave.

“I will do that as soon as I can. But Gwen, would that I cannot find him-”

 _“Don’t,”_ she answers, far more sharply than she intended, and he falls silent. Gwen bites her lip. “Thank you.” She reaches up on tip-toe and kisses him on his cheek like they’re small children again, because _damn_ Camelot’s rumour mill. If people don’t have more important things to worry about than whether she is carrying out a dalliance with her closest friend from childhood, then they need find a better occupation for their time and focus. Then she hurries away, and doesn’t look back.

“You’re late,” says Steward sharply as she walks into his office to report and fetch her mistress’ schedule for the day.

“Sorry, Lord Steward.” Gwen drops into a curtsey, low enough that it’s polite, high enough to remind the Lord Steward that his position, when it all comes down it, is very trivial. He’s not royalty, or even nobility. He’s just a rather fat man from the lower town like she, who had somehow clawed his way up into King Uther’s graces, so much so that he was put in charge of the household beneath her mistress, and who reminds her of a great warty toad. Steward huffs, but hands her the clay tablet with Gwen’s duties and Morgana’s schedule upon it, even though she can’t read, and she goes on her way, stopping only by the laundry to pick up a basket of clothes Morgana soiled climbing a tree to spite both the prince and the king, which Gwen has now to mend. Oft-times her mistress is thoughtless, doing things that she knows will irk others as much as doing it for her own enjoyment, and oft-times Gwen is the one who has to pick up the pieces and stitch them back together. She doesn’t mind. Much.

When she enters the chamber as quietly as she can, setting the basket and the tablet down with minimal noise and checks that, indeed, Morgana is still asleep, she slips back out again and traverses to the kitchen, where she fetches Morgana’s breakfast. Her own stomach rumbles, so she contents herself with taking one of Cook’s apple pies, small enough to fit in her palm, and leaves two coppers in its place.

“Good morning, my lady,” she calls out as she enters the chambers. Morgana mutters something and rolls so that her back is to Gwen, smushing her face into the pillow. “My _lady,_ ” Gwen says, gently admonishing as she tries to hold in her laughter. Every morning, Morgana does this. Morgana is not fond of the hours after dawn.

“Not getting up,” Morgana says, her voiced muffled by the heavy feather cushion she’s currently stuffing her head under.

“But my lady, there is spiced venison from the forest.”

“What kind of venison?”

“Boar and deer, my lady,” says Gwen, who knows Morgana and has become exceedingly talented at bribing her to rise from bed each morn. “Flavoured with saffron and pepper, too,” she adds, because she has seen Morgana try to smuggle and eat raw saffron, she loves it so. The king indulges her, and dotes on her like a daughter, so she gets away with almost anything. Well, _almost._ “ _Come_ now, my lady.”

Grunting in what could be considered as very _un-_ lady-like, Morgana sits up and stretches, her hair all amess. Then she slips back under the covers and falls off the bed, just as she has done since Gwen was first admitted into her service. Gwen took the liberty of purchasing a think bear-skin rug to install beside the bed a week after she’d watched Morgana hit the hard stone floors, and as a result she now has to cover up far less bruises on her lady’s arms and even, occasionally, her face. Which is a good thing, because Morgana detests wearing cosmetics, saying they make her skin itch terribly.

As Morgana feasts upon forest-meat and soft white bread and a exotic fruits imported from far-off places and a little of the strange sharp drink labelled _brandy,_ that neither Gwen nor anyone else has ever heard of, but that Morgana is fiercely possessive over. Gwen eats some of her pie, then wipes her hands on a cloth and begins to comb out Morgana’s tangled hair. It is soft and fine and wavy, whereas Gwen’s curls and grows frizzy at the slightest hint of rain. _Ting_ goes the light off the iron-wrought hairpins that give Morgana a headache and Gwen sore hands, though neither can explain it.

After that, Gwen takes down the half empty, picked-at tray, surreptitiously slipping the crust of the bread into her mouth as she leaves. From then on, the day is a hectic whirlwind and the start of the week-long name-day celebrations being held in Morgana’s honour, so Gwen must clean and sew and dress her mistress at least four different times, and she forgets about her brother until she arrives to an empty, silent home.

Then she cries.

 _(Ting_ goes the light off Gwen’s silver tears.)


End file.
